July 7, 2015 at 7:33PM

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First Corporate Work - Shot On BMPCC

Hey all! I cut my first piece of corporate work for a client trying to get a new bag off the ground via Kickstarter.
The client loves it (which is great!), but always looking for additional comments and advice, as this is my first individual venture into corporate shooting.
Hope you all enjoy, and thank you for being such a great community and resource!https://vimeo.com/131913156

It was very good. The only thing I could really see that could be an issue, and it was a small one, was the part with the two guys. It was a bit shadowy and bland but that would just be a room change or repositioning.

It reminded me of The Social Network opening titles slightly. Mostly because of the music I think. Don't ask haha. I thought it was done rather well! If I was being very critical I would say the delivery of the voiceover was a little flat (although I'm sure that wasn't totally your call) and also the footage color was a little flat. It wasn't flat so much in a hipster way as it was just flat probably because the footage is shot so flat. I just felt like you could have pushed the footage more with color-grading, especially to draw a little more attention to the product. Just my .02.

That's really interesting! I almost always hear clients wondering why the footage looks washed out. But hey, client's gotta be happy first! The flatter looks definitely can look better in a lot of situations but it's surprising to see it in a commercial setting, you know?

I agree; a little fill light would really improve the mood in the last section. Also - and I think this a just a personal thing for me, because I see lots of people use it - I really don't like setups that cut from someone talking directly into the camera to a different angle on the side. I go from feeling like they're talking to me to watching them talk to some other guy. I like it a lot better when you just cut on axis from a wide shot to a close-up so you keep the eye contact. I don't have this problem with profile shots; I actually think that's a pretty effective way to change the angle in these situations, because with a profile shot, I'm not trying to follow their line-of-sight.

Was the guy doing the voice-over one of the owners we saw at the end? I felt like he was a little flat and there were a few places where he didn't enunciate his words very clearly. It's tricky working with people that don't have experience with a mic. I thought the recording sounded good, though. What kind of space did you use to record in?

Thanks Tim! Yeah, the VO was done by one of the owners. There was absolutely $0.00 budget, haha...nothing to hire a professional voice actor or anything. We actually just recorded in their office (pretty quiet place, did the job), used my trusty Rode NTG4 and Tascam DR70D, added minimal audio effects in post.
Noted on the interview - still working on my lightning in certain situations. I tend to be a moody guy, which this probably did not call for :p.

1. With the bit at the end; trying getting the talent to stand away from the background. Create a little bit of depth and maybe cut in so that more of their face is in the frame. This may also help with the shadows. By separating them from the background, you could probably get a nice edge-light in too.

2. The audio quality from the 'interview' section wasn't quite as good as the voice-over. Just remember that audio is as important, if not more, than video.

Thanks Paul! We were quite limited in that space for interview, so I had to shotgun from further away than the initial VO (didn't have any LAVs) and there was not much room to stand. That being said, GREAT advice for my next shoot...I will definitely keep those things in mind. Makes a lot of sense.

Hi,
I liked the movie, nicely shot and edited. Yes some place could be improved though. But at the end, the appeal by two people... nah man. The quality of the last 60 seconds do not match with the rest of the movie. I think you should have shot the interview in some other place with lot more ambient light, and the should have been short in duration. Those two guys looks standing before a firing squad :). Lastly, to me the Gopro shot, slowed more would have made it more interesting. With a ZERO budget I can't ask for more.
KP>

Thanks Dibyendu!
On the kickstarter page, we noticed that and actually split the videos up so their interview is separate somewhere else. I do agree with you...I need to work on my interview lighting skills and what not. GoPro only went to 60fps but I wish I could have gone super slomo there.
Appreciate your comments and thank you for the feedback!

First off, great video. (Especially for your first one) The image from the BMPCC looks beautiful.

Here are a few areas where i feel that the video could be improved:

The skateboard follow shot at 1:58 pulled my out of the film a bit. Everything before that shot was very fluid, and the handheld shot interrupted the flow of that segment. Also, for that scene, most of the shots from 2:08 to 2:14 could be removed (especially the ones where he's just walking).

As for the interview setup, I would move them as far away from that wall as possible and have both of them talking to the camera. (I noticed the first guy that spoke didn't speak to the camera, while the second guy with the lighter shirt spoke to the camera).

This has already been mentioned, but the cutting to the side angle is kind of awkward for this type of video. I personally would have put the cameras as close together as possible and have one camera as a 2 shot (with both in the frame) and the other camera tighter focusing on whoever is talking.

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